Rewind
by Ryfee
Summary: A chance meeting, fate turned upside down, two hearts beating as one. — UlquiHime one-shot collection.
1. i

Disclaimer: Bleach is not mine.  
**a/n**: UlquiHime one-shot/drabble later be **rated M** for adult/dark themes, future lemons/sexual contents, violence, swearing.

* * *

**Rewind**

_we wish we could turn back time_  
_and be frozen where we were_  
for eternity

_—__—_

**i. **(once upon a time)

_Once upon a time, there was a princess who fell in love_—

* * *

Ever since she comes back from Hueco Mundo, Orihime changes.

She becomes more detached. Her eyes look unfocused and soulless, dark pupils floating aimlessly amidst pools of gray, sinking lower and lower into ashen depths until they catch flashes of sunlight no more.

Instead of paying attention to the teacher, Orihime scribbles furiously on the pristine white pages of her notebook, filling them with a name — _only one name _— in capitals. As if it's the basic knowledge of life, the only thing she ever needs to know and learn and remember.

Tatsuki leans forward, hopes her hushed tone is drowned by their teacher's passionate voice, and asks with eyes dilating in concern; "who is _that_?"

Orihime jerks her head around, embracing the book tighter and closer to her chest — _heart _— as she smiles knowingly, softly. Dark eyelashes flutter down; like a lover reminiscing a nonexistent romance she whispers,

"_Ulquiorra_."

Flustered, Tatsuki draws back and tries to divert her attention to the board again.

* * *

Scattered before her are boxes wrapped in iridescent papers and adorned with pretty ribbons, hiding surprises she has yet to unravel. Smiling to herself, Orihime begins to unwrap one of the boxes, Tatsuki cheering beside her, singing _happy birthday Orihime_ jubilantly.

The auburn haired girl stares down at her finding: a soft pink dress with frills billowing gracefully at the hem, intricate laces accentuate each rosy wave with exquisite femininity. Truly beautiful. But the treasure doesn't take her breath away — instead of gasping in awe, Orihime gazes at it with an alien expression.

Tatsuki stopped singing and is now grinning widely, her countenance full of expectation. "Flabbergasted? What do you think, huh? Perfect? I thought it'd look excellent on you! You've always loved pink, after all."

Her friend's smile wanes when Orihime twists her head around, brows knitted in disagreement.

"Pink? But… my favorite's white."

Orihime knows she has always loved white. In all her dreams and memories and flashing images _she's always wearing white_, Virgin Mary color starkly vivid against her sunset locks, rivulets of sin and suffering.

She always looks beautiful in white. Innocent and fake and stunning and prone to breaking.

_Like a princess_.

* * *

When her friends ask what's wrong with her, she only shakes her head and smiles. When they ask if she's sick and points out the bags under her eyes, she just laughs and tells them she's okay.

They don't buy her excuses, but they don't and won't understand — _she really is okay._

Her sleeping schedule may somewhat have changed, but it's nothing big. It's just a routine she does every night now. An addictive but healthy routine that involves gazing out her apartment windows.

She likes the somnolent town. The deadly silence and steady breathing of an insecure palace in the middle of the night, vulnerable but exotic as yellow lights flicker and line up below her, like signposts and directions in a purgatory — she likes them all. Because they remind her of _somewhere far away_ where everything is dead quiet and lifeless but constantly breathing with despair and serene solitary.

But what she likes the most is the moon. It's ghostly pale, like the princess dress she wears in her dreams and the walls of her castle and _his skin_.

Her white knight.

Who liquefies and solidifies out of darkness, who steps into her room quietly and feeds her and gazes at her with electric emerald eyes.

Who will whisk her away from every horrible thing on bat wings and deafening air current.

A dreamy sigh escapes Orihime's lips.

"Oh, _Ulquiorra_."

* * *

She knows he is still here with her. Kurosaki-kun doesn't know. Ishida-kun doesn't know. No one knows _but her_.

His figure has long incinerated away, embroidered her mind with burned edges of crisp images that will never die. Ulquiorra might have disintegrated and waned from reality, but Orihime knows better.

She sees him.

He's everywhere.

And she knows he's _there_, in the darkened walls, watching her with lugubrious emerald eyes, the gaze sending chills down her spine — just like it always did back then. And she almost smiles at the thought.

She likes to huddle closer to the walls, lights out and black shadows crawling and scraping and splattering every corner of her room with murky debris of the past. And the shadows, they move, dance, twirl and flash. And they have bright, verdant eyes.

Sometimes she can hear him slipping soundlessly through the open door; sometimes she can hear his monotone voice and whispers in the zephyr caressing her sunset fringes. Sometimes she can feel his hands trailing across her skin, each touch cold but oddly sensual, making her moan and close her eyes until the room spins and all she sees is him him him _him_.

Orihime's head slumps onto her pillow, gray orbs never leaving the animated shadows sprawled across the ceiling. Cerise lips turn upwards, the wind outside gets stronger and rattles her window, and she squeezes her eyes shut, hands on her chest, her mouth open.

"Ulquiorra, Ulquiorra, Ulquiorra, _Ulquiorra_…"

She breathes his name like oxygen. She utters his name like a prayer. Like a mantra.

"_You are still here_," she smiles and opens her eyes, staring at nothing in particular, her laughter ricocheting off the walls with eerie solace. Then, in a low whisper, she asks the whizzing air, "When will you take me away from this tower? So that we can_ escape_?"

The silence is vociferous.

She chuckles. "I can wait. Of course."

The shadows elongate and spread, shrouding her with twisted contentment. And she embraces them almost greedily.

Burnt edges of memories reduce to ashes in her head, but she _knows_, she knows _he still lingers_.

Orihime smiles again. Striking green is all she sees before slumber comes.

"…so that we can live… together… happily ever after."

She falls asleep and sinks into a dark ocean that drowns her in black and green.

* * *

—_with hollowdemonenemy _shadows_._

**_—__—_  
**

* * *

_**a/n**: About Orihime in this. She's one of few who has the higher chance of being mentally "broken" after the war; hence the obsession and delusions. I wanted to stress on that. There will (dark)fluff in the future, so don't worry about the romance._  
_Thanks very much for reading, hope you enjoyed it. Please review and tell me what you think._

_— Ryfee_


	2. ii

**Rewind**

_Our life is a midnight cabaret,  
our faces opera masks._

* * *

**ii.**

The sky of Las Noches rolls above him as he defies the air current, his landing marked by a loud thump and scattering dust and splattering blood. His breath comes out in short rasps as if his lungs have been clogged with ashes. The faint beating that resounds from deep inside him grows weaker and weaker, the clock ticking away towards midnight, the curtain call.

His electric emerald eyes remain unwavering — as always — fixated on the solemn firmament that returns his stare with unapologetic growl, apathetic darkness. He blinks once, and the sky is still there. Of course it is. This is the real truth of Hueco Mundo after all: withered sand that clings for mercy, bent stalks and trees that bear nonexistent fruits, white castle built on empty grandeur, skyscrapers that reach out to nothingness, and the sky that is not beautiful cerulean but forever ebony, made of carcasses of black sin.

This is the real world they, the Espada, the hollows, have always lived in. Unforgiving, callous, red and black intermingling with each other — nothing like the azure sky beneath him, artificial and dazzling with white lies. This perpetual darkness is what they're used to seeing and living under. The watchful eye that always surveys them as they hunt and kill one another, evolve and become stronger.

Las Noches is an upgrade from what they used to call home. A contrived luxury, a castle that cradles their dreams and ambitions and hides their killing intentions behind pure white. They have masks, embroidered signs of their identity, who they're supposed to be and power and kill kill _kill_.

Ulquiorra is one of them, the macabre dancers who slaughter and bask in blood, reds shining gold and melting against skin. They are the elite soldiers Aizen-sama has picked, the ones given power and trust and freedom and purpose. The stray wolves that no longer need to weep forlornly in the middle of the night.

But every show must come to an end, and his curtain call is now. He managed to regain his balance and is standing on his feet again, his visage showing nothing but impassiveness. And the end is near, pulsating and throbbing and spreading in his blood like virus, cackling joyously as it eats his existence away.

His verdant eyes inadvertently avert towards her again, her sunset locks billowing in the sandy breeze, clashing against the dark background. Bringing this woman here has unwound the cataclysm harbored by fate, their — _his _— end. She's supposed to be a pawn, another toy to Aizen-sama's collection. When she first stepped into Las Noches, he could feel tension shaking the air around her, her terror perceptible.

Ulquiorra used to believe that he could break Inoue Orihime, whom he preferred to address just as "woman". He used to believe that he could dress her up like the rest of them, glowing pristine in her misery, clad in white, weathered clothes — their beautiful broken marionette, the ragged doll pulled around by strings, dancing and falling and breaking like porcelain.

He used to believe that he could engulf her with darkness, dimming the glow on her eyes, the sunset on her hair, plunging her emotions into oblivion, suturing fake smiles on her face. He wanted her to cower before him, subdue, succumb and blend with the nothingness of this castle, white and stark and meaningless. He wanted to make her forget the human world, its resplendent skies; he wanted to paint her life black.

He wanted her to wither, torn petals that would reek of bitter past and unattainable dreams. Decayed and putrid and dead dead _dead_.

But she never did, never does.

"Are you scared, woman?"

A hand reaching out to him. A pair of eyes swimming in an ocean of emotions. "No, I'm not."

Inoue Orihime doesn't wilt; she blossoms here in Las Noches. Thriving among bent stalks and fruitless trees and bitter sand and haunted castle. And her scent wafts over him, butterflies fluttering and rippling across his pallid skin. He feels oddly warm.

The show must go on, with or without him. Before he fades, his eyes capture Orihime's figure for one last time, her hand still extended towards him, the ghostly towers and skies looming behind her — yet they're no longer murky. Something seems to have set the heavens ablaze, a conflagration of aureates and oranges gilding the sky gold.

His midnight has ended. He can feel his opera mask breaking.

"…I see."

The dawn has finally come.

_And here in his hand, is a petal of her blossom — self, _heart_._

* * *

_**a/n**: Happy Birthday, Ulquiorra! May you come back to us. ;-;  
Sorry for the late update, I've been held up by my IchiRuki stories. Also, I've been contemplating on my next installments... would you prefer AU or IU? I've been thinking to throw some AU stories into this collection, and even though this was written for the 30angsts challenge on LJ, I think I'll derail from track. Screw that. I'll write whatever I want. XD;  
Thanks very much for reading, reviews would be greatly appreciated! Please tell me what you think?_

___— Ryfee_  



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